GamesIndustry.biz has more quotes on the state of PC gaming, this time from
Steve Nix, id Software Director of Business Development. Nix feels some of the
hardcore PC gaming audience is shifting to consoles, something id cannot
ignore:

"There are plenty of people who are diehard mouse and keyboard
guys that may never go to console, and also right now, if you have the highest
of high-end PCs, you're generally going to get a better visual experience," Nix
said. "There's no console out there that's as powerful as a God machine right
now, with a Quad-Core and a GeForce 8800 - it's very hard for any console to
compete with that."

"So you still have PC players, and some players are just console guys, but have
players moved over? Absolutely. We love PC gaming, and we continue to support PC
gaming - but you can't ignore the market realities and the size of the console
market these days."

I really take offense to this "dumbing down" comment coming from the PC crowd... as if console games are somehow for the stupid.

That's not what most of us mean, though. When we say that console games are dumbed down, we're primarily referring to games that suffer from Deus Ex Invisible War syndrome. Smaller maps, fewer options, no more inventory control, far fewer choices, etc.

Compare a shooter like Crysis to a shooter like Halo 3, and tell me which of the two you feel is dumbed down. Compare Bioshock to its spiritual predecessors, System Shock 1 and 2. Is it dumbed down? Yes it is.

Console games are just far far simpler.

Whether that's because the controller isn't suited for more complex games (due to a lack of buttons), or whether the console itself just can't handle it due to its lack of memory or whether it's because the average console gamer is a mouthbreathing, drooling frat boy who drives a Jeep, I'll leave up to others to decide.

I think it's pretty evident that console games ARE simpler in pretty much every way compared to PC Games. (by which I mean games that aren't just ports.)